The OF Blog: September 27-October 30 reads

Saturday, October 31, 2009

September 27-October 30 reads

Been over a month since I've updated my 2009 reading list, so here are the books I've read over the past five weeks or so, with tiny commentaries:

369  Jaime Martínez Tolentino, Cuentos Fantásticos (Spanish) (decent)

370  Hayo Miyazaki, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, vol. I (good)

371  Italo Calvino, The Path to the Spiders' Nest (very good)

372  Scott Mills, Big Clay Pot (good)

373  Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis (very good for much of the way, but too short)

374  Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (re-read) (classic)

375  Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poesías de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Spanish) (OK)

376  Zoran Živković, Impossible Stories II (very good collection)

377 Zoran Živković, Amarkord (Serbian) (very good)

378  Nick Tapalansky and Alex Eckman-Lawn, Awakening:  Volume I (good to very good)

379  Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop (excellent)

380  Pat Barker, The Man Who Wasn't There (very good)

381  Walter Moers, The City of Dreaming Books (outstanding)

382  J.M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello (decent)

383  Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (very good)

384  Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (very good)

385  Amanda Downum, The Drowning City (meh)

386  Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl (good to very good)

387  Peter Straub (ed.), American Fantastic Tales:  Terror and the Uncanny:  From Poe to the Pulps (excellent)

388   Peter Straub (ed.), American Fantastic Tales:  Terror and the Uncanny: From the 1940s to Now (outstanding)

389  Sergio Toppi, Sparrow:  Volume 12 (artbook) (very good)

390  John Watkiss, Sparrow:  Volume 11 (artbook) (very good)

391  Angela Carter, Nights at the Circus (re-read) (excellent)

392  Gail Carriger, Soulless (very good debut novel)

393  Ashley Wood, Sparrow:  Volume 0  (artbook) (very good)

394  Ashley Wood, Sparrow:  Volume 1 (artbook) (very good)

395  Phil Hale, Sparrow:  Volume 2 (artbook) (very good)

396  Kent Williams, Sparrow:  Volume 3 (artbook) (very good)

397  Shane Glines, Sparrow:  Volume 4 (artbook) (very good)

398  Phil Hale, Sparrow:  Volume 5 (artbook) (very good)

399  Vladimir Nabokov, Novels and Memoirs 1941-1951 (Library of America omnibus) (excellent to outstanding)

400  Kristin Cashore, Fire (excellent)

401  Vladimir Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading (excellent to outstanding)

402  Eoin Colfer, And Another Thing... (already reviewed, but very good)

403  David Ratte, Toxic Planet (very good)

404  Camilla d'Errico, Sparrow:  Volume 13 (artbook) (very good)

405  Jeff VanderMeer, Shriek:  An Afterword (re-read) (excellent)

406  Vladimir Nabokov, Glory (excellent)

407  Dave Eggers, The Wild Things (excellent)

408  Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (very good)

409  William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (good)

410  Clive Barker, The Books of Blood (very good)

411  Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin, The Brave Little Tailor (very good to excellent)

412  Sergio Toppi, Sharaz-De:  Volume 1 (excellent to outstanding)

413  Sergio Toppi, Sharaz-De:  Volume 2 (excellent)

414  Jeff VanderMeer, Booklife (review forthcoming; very good to excellent; non-fiction)

415  Scott Mills, Trenches (good)

416  Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham (re-read) (classic)

417  Robert Jordan, Knife of Dreams (good to very good)

418  Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, The Gathering Storm (already reviewed; very good)

419  H.P. Lovecraft, Tales (Library of America omnibus) (excellent)

420  Philip K. Dick, Four Novels of the 1960s (Library of America omnibus) (very good)

421  Gustavo Arellano, ¡Ask a Mexican! (very good; non-fiction)

422  Jonathan Strahan (ed.), Eclipse Three (very good)

423  Italo Calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies (excellent)

424  Jeff Lemire, The Nobody (excellent to outstanding)

425  Denis Diderot and D'Alembert, L'Encyclopédie:  Art de L'Escrime (French) (good; non-fiction)

426  J.M. Coetzee, Youth (good)

427  Rick Berry, Sparrow:  Volume 6 (artbook) (very good)


In Progress:

Jeff Lemire, Essex County (omnibus, with new material, outstanding so far, 2/3 in)

Ellen Datlow (ed.), Lovecraft Unbound

William Faulkner, Novels 1926-1929 (Library of America omnibus)

Philip K. Dick, Five Novels of the 1960s and 1970s (Library of America omnibus)

William Jansen, Beginner's Basque

Stephen King, The Dark Tower:  The Gunslinger Born (graphic novel adaptation)


Future Plans:

N.K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Don DeLillo, Underworld 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, with book number 416, it merely shows that great minds think alike.

Seriously, I've been awaiting some reviews of 100,000 Kingdoms and saw one on another site and will be very interested to see how well it fares here.

Larry Nolen said...

I'm certainly curious about that book, but it likely won't be read for a few more weeks, or maybe even closer to its February 2010 release date.

D said...

:: points to 381 ::

When are you going to review that one?

Larry Nolen said...

Don't know, Dunja, but that book is one of the ones I'm sending you shortly, as it is full of WIN.

D said...

Oh. In that case I'm going to have my curiosity satisfied in the bestest way. :D

You read Amarcord in serbian?

Larry Nolen said...

Of course! I have a feeling I'm going to have to read a lot more of Moers' work...and end up sending that to you :P

Yes, I read it in a parallel way - I'd read a few pages in the original, then read the English translation found in Impossible Stories II. Liked that "story suite" quite a bit, but you already knew of my admiration for his writing.

 
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